


A Living Epitaph, He

by Moonfireflight



Series: A Living Epitaph, He [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, For the angst, I'll give you an internet cookie if you can guess her name from this, Major plot spoilers, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, and then I shipped them, spoilers for emet-selch's real name, the theory that the WoL is the 14th member of the Convocation who left
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 08:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19825939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonfireflight/pseuds/Moonfireflight
Summary: Emet-Selch drifts between the shards, seeking out the most intact remnants of Amaurot, remembering the Final Days... and her.Like many others, I had a lot of feels coming out of the 5.0 Shadowbringers MSQ, and this is the first part of the result.I don't know if this is the best way to do this, but I'm going to make it a series. I like this as a standalone thing, though I've hinted at an OC... I definitely have some ideas of where I want that to go, but I don't know if I'll finish it and I don't want to:a) Give this a higher rating yet, as I'm not sure exactly how much in depth I will end up going with the relationship side of things.b) Keep this at General Audiences, then spring smut on you later. I AM a nasty trash goblin and this is not an entirely remote possibility.I consent to the OTW terms of service and explicitly deny rights to reprint, share, or redistribute this work on any platform not owned by OTW. #





	A Living Epitaph, He

A shadow drifts across a nigh endless ocean of sand. Dunes ripple across the landscape like waves frozen in time. This is the right place, he was sure of it. There were some things he’d forgotten perhaps in his many years, but not this. Everywhere he traveled, he went with a map of that lost world imprinted upon his soul, but even he begins to falter after flying so far with no landmarks. There  _ must _ be something left. Few disasters, magical or natural, could mar, much less erase, the perfect walls and columns that should be right  _ here _ ! A tendril of his phantasmal form, deep purple laced with black, lashes out towards the sand in what would be a petulant kick at it  _ were he corporeal at the moment. _

He refuses to give up, turning his gaze to a horizon that should be resplendent with stone spires and intricate metalwork as far as the eye can see.  _ How does one damnable shard hide an entire city?!  _ Instinct pulls at him, guiding him to drift over yet another dune, where he turns to view it from another angle and… Sunlight glints upon the first thing he’s seen in yalms that wasn’t  _ more accursed sand _ . Sinking closer to it, his form vibrates like a heat shimmer. Stone, not worked by hand or tool but summoned from the collective will of his people, juts out of the landscape, smooth and shining. He yearns to touch it, but to have navigated this sea of sand by foot would have taken months. Though immortal, time was still a factor if the others decided this shard was ready to begin its preparations for the Ardor. 

This close, he can taste the aether coursing through the stone and far, far beneath it now that he’s caught its scent. He’s on his knees, fingers digging into sand. It gets under his fingernails, and fills in the ruts he’s made, over and over and… His spectral form wavers. He can only float there, burning with newfound hatred at this splinter of a world that has drowned his in sand.

With no reason to explore further in this pitiful splinter of a world, he carries himself back to the rift to seek out the next. He intends to press for this one to be rejoined next. 

*******

Two more shards failed his test, proving to be equally useless. He’d found the ruined remnants of Amaurot encased in a sea of glaciers, the city ground under them here cleaved in twain elsewhere. His form contracted into a small sphere as he dove into the only gap found in the ice, passing through half-frozen slush. There was nothing but more ice and a few scant pockets of water, and his home locked within it and sundered. He could likely pass through the ice but he couldn’t muster up the energy to do it. Even incorporeal, it was impossible not to feel trapped beneath that muck, so he retreated. 

In the next, a ring of volcanic islands devoured all but the broken spires of the capitol building. Magma coursed over stone, unable to melt it, but leaving behind scab-like black globs and shattering thew few glorious windows that had survived. He felt the trees below long turned to ash. Below the peaks, palm trees and more _ damned sand _ consumed the skeleton of a residential district. Back in the rift, he scowled while picking at his fingernails. 

*******

Relief. Now there’s a feeling he’s never had much use for and hasn’t felt in decades, but his form expands as he hovers over a shimmering sea. The shore nearby reminds him of something he’d glimpsed on the occasion that he traveled outside of the city for inspiration - Softly rolling hills of grass leading up to a sheer, dark cliff. No workings of the inhabitants of this shard scar yet his view. He gathers up his essence and descends beneath the waters, heading straight for the heart of his homeland. 

The irritation of failure is still sharp in his mind, but it’s dwarfed by the longing he’s carried with him for aeons. He pauses in the near pitch darkness. In this form he has neither breath nor heartbeat yet the undulations of the water around and within him pulse in a familiar and organic manner. This feels right. Further down he drifts, letting the ebb and flow of the waters and the aether of the sea guide him until he sees it. A bright green sphere illuminates the swaying seaweed around him, stirring memories of grand dance halls filled with cavorting automata under crystal chandeliers. He lets himself be drawn to its light until he can see the pattern of the column that holds it. 

How long he floated there, emotions rolling through him like restless waves, he knows not. Once his senses returned to him, he made this way back to the shore, and then, the rift. 

As he spends most of his time exploring, seeking, he hasn’t bothered with this body except for meetings, which he can scarcely pay attention to anyway. Black gloves creak from disuse as he clenches his fists within them until he  _ feels  _ them. Returning to this body and the black robes of his office always required a moment of adjustment before his senses awoke properly. Even though he’s seen those walls beneath the sea, he’s admitted to himself that he needs to  _ feel  _ them before he’ll believe. 

In moments he’s standing on the shore, boots sinking into the soft sand. He grinds his heel into it, noting the substance is exactly as annoying as he’d expected, and lets out a scoffing laugh before descending into the waters once more. This form has no need to breathe and the aether he wears as a cloak protects him from the more irritating aspects of being doused in water fully clothed. He seeks out the same currents that brought him… -his chest stirs as he realizes both the truth and the pale imitation of the word at the fore of his mind - home. 

He finds strange comfort in the company of the beasts that glide through the water just out of sight. Their shapes recall Mitron’s concepts and his excitement at showing his peers each new variant of fish or other sea life.  _ Soon, my friend. Though the first shard was a failure, three others have been rejoined. One day we’ll walk through the halls of the Akadaemia Anyder again, watching your creations shimmer within their aquariums _ . 

And there’s the lamp, its dancing green ghostlight playing over the flora and fauna of this alien sea. Up close, its light is nearly blinding so he dives deeper, almost out of its reach. The sight of the golden chevron pattern illuminated thus is no less enthralling the second time. Perhaps more when seen with the eyes granted by this form. He approaches with no hesitation, having ached for this moment for ages unfathomable to the beastkin and men that scurry about in the world above. 

It is strange for him to see his hands without gloves. They seem frail and sickly to him in the distant green glow. Any petty concerns he has melt away as his palm presses against the stone before him. Despite the chill waters he feels warmth radiating from it and infusing him. Warmth and certainty. This is only a support pillar for a walkway that no longer stands, but he can feel it. Amaurot, or at least the most intact reflection of it between the remaining shards is here. He hasn’t looked for it on the Source as he knows how destructive each Rejoining has been. The mad winds of their first success would have been enough to reduce even ruins to dust, scattering what was left over half the sea. Even after that, he had no interest in slipping past the newly come hoard of dragons that decided to make their home on the Source just to confirm its ruination. 

Perhaps should wait for the Rejoining to complete like the rest of his brethren, but so few of them remember this place as he does. Only the three of them who were not shattered and scattered can fully understand and recall what they’ve lost. Pashtarot, Emmeroloth ... the tattered remnants of their souls were useful but they had tunnel vision for the task at hand. Lahabrea and Elidibus were content to lurk in the rift when they weren’t whispering words of  _ encouragement  _ in the ears of men. He’s done his fair share of that, of course, but his plans wouldn’t need his oversight for some time. The Source was still settling into new patterns after the cataclysmic fall of the Allagan empire. Thus did he submit once more to the longing that hunches in his chest at all times, pawing at him for attention, and begin the quest to find this shade of that once perfect city. 

Galvanized by the feel of conjured stone beneath his palm, he turns and dives deeper still, gliding through a network of caverns he sensed earlier. Bioluminescent life forms glimmer and sway as he passes, lighting his way - something else he’ll have to thank Mitron and his peers for one day. The surety that Amaurot slumbers nearby drives him until he nears the exit of the cave and senses a vast open space beyond. He feels himself hesitate, not ready to find some new way that these shards have betrayed him. But, he needed to know. 

As he dives into that massive space, he feels the shape of the ruins before him and wills the water aspected aether to carry him faster. In the near silence of the sea, his heartbeat - unnecessary though it is - is all he can hear, riotous against his breast. _ This is it _ . He draws closer and begins to see the aetheric outlines of skyscrapers and towers. Below, walkways wend their way between buildings. So few are intact, but the heart of it is here amidst the skeletal wreckage. He swims up high to get a… and he scoffs as he thinks “bird’s eye view” here in a realm where no cloudkin could reach. Yet he can sense the outlines of the city he helped build and holds out a finger to trace those familiar roads and districts, their names coming easily to his mind as if it were only yesterday. 

Far ahead, he sees the foundation of the Polyleritae District, where the Capitol once stood tall. It was there that the Convocation met often to resolve disputes and discuss new ways to improve their civilization further. In the later days, there was little to discuss beyond personal happenings and fabulous concepts they would contemplate. The souls of his thirteen peers shine in his memories, each distinct and whole - polestars to guide him toward a better future. 

Not far from there he makes out the outline of a courtyard once bordered by the lush gardens where Halmarult’s creations were showcased. He remembers trailing vines resplendent with blossoms of all shades, cascading down pillars and trellises. He remembers…

_ It was beneath those shady bowers at the back of the garden that they often met, huddled so close that their voices were barely above a whisper as they conspired. Those few souls who passed by them smiled at the sight of two Paragons so enraptured with each other. And that they were. He hung on her every word as she painted a picture of her ideal dwelling. A humble apartment in the Ademus District. Walls lined with bookshelves from floor to vaulted ceiling, watched over by automata that kept them clean and would deliver any volume at a request from their masters. Emerald green vines lace themselves among the rafters. At a word, they would blossom - a rainbow of color in the daylight and bioluminescent blooms to light their way at night. Together.  _

_ Those imaginings never came to be as their glory days faded. Word reached Amaurot of ill tidings from other lands and the Convocation met often to debate how they would respond, if at all. Some held hope that their nation would be spared from the horrors plaguing other cities across the sea. She was one of the fiercest advocates of action, her fiery retorts leaving all feeling chagrined for hesitating to leap to the defense of distant cities. Even when they disagreed, he listened in awe to the way she crafted her arguments and delivered them with such passion. Yet endless debate became their response, meaning no decision was made until it was too late.  _

_ He remembered the last time anyone spoke his true name aloud.  _

_ “I can’t join you in this madness. I miss them too, but there has to be another way!”  _

_ With a long sigh, his shoulders slumped. Exhaustion nearly let him crumble under the weight of his despair. “Please, Seph. I know what we did was a gamble but it  _ worked! _ Zodiark pulses at the heart of our star, silencing it’s anguished cries and mending its wounds. All He asks is one last sacrifice and those who gave their lives can live among us again!” _

_ She threw back her hood and a gust of wind, still hot from the embers of the cataclysm, tousled her long black hair, making her look every inch the force of nature he knew she was. “You are blind, Hades. You’ve changed since that day, looking only to the past, not the future. Zodiark hungers in a way that you cannot sate. He will ask for half and then half again until nothing else lives upon our star but He. I won’t contest that the first calamity was halted by bringing him forth, but this Primal will be our final undoing!”  _

Their debate had raged on through that burning night, but ultimately she could not be swayed. He remembers watching as she walked away, past charred trees and crumbling edifices, standing tall amidst the wreckage and still swirling ash. The stars above were blotted out by thick, sickly smoke, cast in an eerie shade of orange. Agony blossomed in his chest as she faded into the distance. He gave in at last to crushing despair, collapsing to his knees. Falling tears hissed against the singed pavement.

Emet-Selch clenches his fists, willing himself not to weep before this monument to times long gone, for he burned with the surety that Amaurot would shine once more. 


End file.
